Children need to know that letters stand for
phonemes and
spellings map out the phonemes in spoken words in order for them to
learn to
read and spell words.Short vowels are
the toughest to identify.The goal of
this activity is to help the students recognize the phoneme /o/
in written and spoken words.In this
activity students will learn the
phoneme /o/ by learning a meaningful
representation, letter symbol, and by finding /o/ in
words.

Materials:

- Doc in the Fog (Educational Insights. California.
1990)

- Letterboxes

- /o/ Tongue
Twister "Owen observes offenses often."

- Letter tiles: b,c,i,k,l,m,o,p,s,t,x.

- Pictures of objects: mop, box, clock, shop

- Pencils

-student assessment worksheet

Procedure:

1.Explain why new idea is valuable:"Why do you think it is important for us
to learn the sound /o/ as well as the
letter o?"In order to
read and spell words it is
important to recognize each sound in a word?What are other reasons that recognizing the sounds in words is
important?

2.Background Knowledge:"Raise your hand if have ever been to the doctor's office and
had
the doctor look down your throat?What
does he tell you to say when he does this?That's right, he tells you to open up and say /o/."I want all of us
to pretend that we are at the doctor's office and the doctor has to
look in our
mouths and say /o/.(Everyone
should open mouth and stick out
their tongues as if the doctor was really looking to practice.)Cue students by giving them a 1-2-3 count.

3.Okay, now we are going to try a tongue twister
that
involves several words with the /o/."Oliver observes offenses often."Teacher
says once then students repeat.Now, every
time you hear a word with the /o/ sound I want you to
really stretch
out the /o/ at the beginning of the
words.Let's try.I'll
model first."Ooooliver ooobserves
ooofenses oooften."Now everyone else try
it together.(Cue 1-2-3)

4.Now that we know hot to recognize the /o/ sound in words, lets do some practice activities.I'm going to say two words and I want you to
tell me which word you heard the /o/
sound in.Do you hear /o/
hot or hat?Cat or dog?Offense or defense?Note or
Knot?Ship or shop?Airplane
or Helicopter?Great Job!

5.Now we are going to practice spelling and
reading words by
using our letterboxes.First, I am going
to ask you to make words such as stop.You need to place each letter that represents the sound you hear
in a
box.For example [Model]:Stop-
/s/ -/t/ - /o/ - /p/.I hear the /s/ first so lets place the letter that
makes the /s/ sound in the first
box.[Model] Does everyone have the
letter s in the first box?Great!Now let's finish spelling our word.Does everyone have /t/-/o/-/p/?Great!That's t,
o, and p.Now you try
the following words:

[3] lot

[3] box

[3] mop

[4] shop

[4] clock

[4] blob

[4] slip

[4] stomp

"I will put the tiles together to make the words
and I
want you to read them to me.[Teacher
places s,t,o,p tiles together to make
the words stop]Now let's go through the
list of words together.I want you to
read each word aloud."

6.Whole Text:

Now I want you to read Doc in the Fog
aloud to
me.[Book talk]Do
you like magic?Doc is a magician.We have to read the book to see what magic
tricks are in store for us.

Assessment:

Students will be assessed on recognizing /o/ in spoken words as well as during
the letterbox lesson.Students will also
be given a worksheet after reading the book.The worksheet provides pictures of different objects with items
that
have the /o/ sound in their name and
some that do not have the /o/ sound. Teacher
will assess by informal observation at each table and listening to the
students
reading the name of the objects. Teacher should read all the names of
the
objects after the students begin circling the ones that have the /o/ sound.